The Start Collecting forces expand as we get to see what Games Workshop have been doing for the new factions of Age of Sigmar. Here we have the five new additions to the line-up and later a look at the basing materials coming your way for hobbyists too.

We’re kicking off with…

Sylvaneth

Stormcast Eternals

Khorne Bloodbound

Ironjawz

Flesh-Eater Court

We’ve talked in depth about how good these are as Starter Sets for getting stuck into your games. They come with a whole bunch of neat line infantry as well as a character and a big beast of feature model kit to help you along. I think the Ironjawz set and the Khorne Bloodbound could be very popular with collectors.

A New Battlefield & Bases

As well as the models they have now shown off the bases that you can get to help spruce up your Age of Sigmar collection. They have catered to all of the scales including 25mm & 32mm, up to 40mm & 65mm.

As I mentioned it’s a shame that these have only just come out as it would have been nice to help make my Silver Tower models look extra special. Ah well, maybe for the next haul of models and hopefully expansions.

Additionally they also have the Oval Bases in 60mm & 95mm plus the big Large Detail Kit for working on your monsters.

Additionally there is a new Battlefield you can pick up called the Shattered Dominion allowing you to fight out your battles in Age of Sigmar on a fully sculpted and realised battlefield effectively ready to go.

All you need are some sprays and a little bit of weathering work and you’ll end up with a very nice looking tabletop. I might be tempted by this to make everything that much more simple.

What do you think of their haul for this week?

"They come with a whole bunch of neat line infantry as well as a character and a big beast of feature model kit to help you along..."

I like the bases and start collecting sets are always great value. My one gripe with the bases is they do not match the bases sizes of all recent releases, like the kurnoth hunters came on 50mm but new bases are only 40/65. I think that they could have probably planned better to either do 50mm styled bases or put kurnoth on 65mm. I get base size doesn’t matter RAW but organises play often restricts you to bases size from the box.

they had a big set before that if i remember was cheaper than that, all street tiles .. now all they seem to sell are individual tiles. Not sure you would need that large a surface to play infinity on though?

I wasn’t really viewing it from the point of view of what you do and don’t need for various games. The point was that in terms of price, they are well placed in the wider market for what you get. 6×6 from Customeeple will cost you £160 more than GW. Even if they had a bundle where you could buy 6×6 as a set, I can’t see the bundle discount dropping down to £200, that’s almost 50% off. For further reference, 4×4 from Customeeple, a standard Infinity board, costs £240. GW are cheaper by volume but less flexible in the amount you can buy.

Personally I hate the look of gaming mats. I want to play on terrain, not a picture of some terrain. Having said that, I really don’t have the room or even the desire to own a 6 foot by 4 foot gaming surface. I wish that GW would sell individual tiles, like FW do.

@manpug Roll up mats definitely have a place, especially if you’re low on space and I actually like some of the plain textured ones (i.e. a basic grass or forest floor or such)

However, if a 3D board is something you think you might want in the future, whether it’s GW or someone else, for reference, the GW boards fit into a 2′ x 2′ bag that is around 6″ thick, so you can hide them away when you’re done.

I liked the old realm of battle boards, I’m less keen on the new ones because they’re a bit too flat and the new boards will fit into a bag that’s 2′ x 2′ x 6″, so they’re easy to store.

However, this is where I sort of fall out of love with GW’s gaming boards. The old realm of battle was 3D, it had hills and rocks and stuff and so even if you only wanted 4′ x 4′ it was worth taking some time to decide which tiles to use. Even though in each game there were two tiles you wouldn’t use, you would use them sometimes. The new ones are all flat so if you only play 4′ x 4′ games, it doesn’t matter which tiles you use and by buying 6 tiles, you’re effectively buying 2 tiles more than you need.

I see it both ways. I like the feel of playing on a mat, and I much prefer playing on a mat to a painted board (or even an unpainted table), but the ideal is to play on a fully modelled terrain board.

The GW tiles (you can pre-order them at 20% off from various places at the moment) are a lot more than a mat, but you’re getting something different.

And for me, one of the things that I like about this set is that they are flat. The ones with sculpted hills looked very nice, but I found them very annoying to play on (figures would keep sliding down the hills) and it’s nice to be able to move terrain around on them.

I also view these new tiles as a modelling / painting project in their own right. I’ll see!

I’m also praying that they will release individual tiles at some point, or at the very least that the Ebay market caters for this need. As an owner of a Realm of Battle board I would like to add a few variant sections without laying down another full £200!

The AoS beginner box sets are a good starting point. I’m happy they finally made boxes with the more resent releases added to them. I was starting to think it was only a ploy to move old stock. Seeing some of the new things added makes me think they really are trying to encourage gamers to get into the new armies, not just the wealthy buy everything at once upon release crowd.

I’m liking the scenic bases. I know they’re definitely not going to be to everyone’s tastes but I think they have some interesting ideas, notably they’re very flat which means that it’s going to be very easy to mount the miniatures on when you have finished painting. Obviously the designs are also very GW centric so if you don’t have an army that is either from GW or shares a similar theme these aren’t going to be very useful. However, I’m looking at this from the perspective of painting up my Warhammer Quest Silver Tower miniatures and I think these bases are going add a fantastic extra dimention to the models with very little effort. I think I’ll probably be buying some of these.

I’m not generally a fan of scenic bases, as I think most models look better on fairly plain bases that don’t distract or detract from the figures. But I agree that these are really nice, and being flat, are really practical.

And Silver Tower is quite possibly the game which would most benefit from having models based on scenic bases rather than standard, plain ones.

Yep, I know. But see my point about preferring plainer bases so as not to distract from the rest of the miniature. In Silver Tower, the boards are so ‘weird and wonderful’ that plain brown dirt, grey dust or green grass would look far more out of place and distracting than magic rock.

But even though I know AoS games are frequently fought over chaos wastelands, I think that the miniatures generally are better served by simpler bases.

Landscaped mats arent too bad, Imho as long as they are like the printed ones and there isnt too much detail on them, like scenery details. A ruined city or a hilly one like an odd battletech maps with all the levels is too abstract for me and breaks the fourth wall a little.